Wednesday, February 24, 2010

5 years ago I was in a knee brace with a broken arm. I tore my ACL and broke my wrist playing indoor soccer. Many many people remember this. I have pictures and I distinctly remember the hours of pain and agony as I endured through casts, braces, surgery and physical therapy death. This was in Southern California.

While I was dealing with this pain, my sister was in Northern California dealing with her own nightmares. She was diagnosed with Synovial Sarcoma, a soft tissue cancer. She had surgery after surgery, lengthy hospital stays, radiation and deformed scars.

Today a new round of news has reached our family. It looks like I might have re-torn my ACL. I was attempting to learn to snowboard but tried to save a small girl from dying at my hand and ended up hurting myself. I have to get a confirming MRI but the way the doctor was talking today it is pretty sure that I will be having another knee surgery. My sister also got some test results back from her pap smear...abnormal cancer cells were found. This is a different cancer than last time and she now has to see more specialists. As though this were not enough for my poor family, Mom has been called back in to get more mammography pictures taken and they wont tell us why.

We are stuck in a bad cycle and are now just waiting. I was hoping to never feel this pain again. I am afraid.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

So for some reason I am a huge idiot and decided that I needed to run a half marathon. This is probably not the best idea I have ever had because it means that I need to get myself into shape and run a lot. I originally started running again back in September because I have a huge stupid break in the middle of my day that I didn't know what to do with myself. This break turned into a good thing because I have been running 3-5 times a week since then. Somewhere along the line some coworkers started talking about running a half; somehow I got dragged into the equation.

In the beginning, when I was only running a mile or two I thought there was no way that I could ever run the full half marathon. This was ok because there were plenty other people I knew that were going to walk or run/walk the entire course.

I have kept running. I can now run 4.5 miles in less than an hour and without stopping. I have run up to 8 miles without stopping and I am still going. This weekend I am trying to run 9-10 miles. A few months ago I could never even imagine running this much.

I LOVE IT!

I love getting ready. I love listening to my ipod. I love pushing myself farther and farther. When I don't run I get all messed up and upset. I love the feeling after I run and I really really enjoy the rhythmic beat that my breathing and foot fall makes on the pavement.

On March 14th I will be one of many many many runners hitting the pavement in Sacramento for the annual;